Singapore — Former Nominated Member of Parliament Calvin Cheng, normally a staunch defender of the government, was critical in a recent Facebook post, referring in particular to the lack of “providing clear instructions to people in how recovery in an endemic phase will work.”
In June, the Multi-ministry Task Force said that Singapore would shift strategies to treating Covid-19 as endemic, meaning it will be around forever.
“We already have a broad plan” to live with Covid and “transit to this new normal,” wrote ministers Gan Kim Yong, Lawrence Wong and Ong Ye Kung in The Straits Times on June 24.
However, according to Mr Cheng, this is not going too well.
“After 18 months of being told what to do, Singaporeans need clear instructions,” he wrote in a Sept 22 Facebook post on Endemic Stage Planning.
Aside from the lack of clear instructions, the former NMP wrote that the government has “also been poor in getting the civil service to respond to questions from a panicking public.”
“The Government is unfortunately making a mess of this,” he added.
Mr Cheng wrote that what needs to happen is for the authorities to clearly communicate how other countries who are in the same post-vaccination wave as Singapore is, and to not just let people who have been tested for the infection with not knowing what to do.
If they test positive and have mild or even no symptoms, he suggested that general practitioners issue medical certificates (MC) for them to stay home. Mr Cheng further pointed out that for the “vast majority” of 98 per cent of those tested, this will be the case.
However, if their symptoms worsen, they should be instructed to ask for help, with serious cases being admitted to the hospital and less serious ones monitored in community care.
Addressing the issue of not having room to isolate, he wrote that this is “again, not different from other diseases. You are likely to spread it to your family. Just like if you have the flu, people around you will get it too. Which is ok if everyone in the household is vaccinated.”
Mr Cheng also wrote that Singapore is not the first nation to go through this state of the pandemic, citing the experiences of the EU, UK, US, and Israel, where it is worse because of lower vaccine rates.
“Our MTF needs to communicate properly so people can look after themselves.
The vast majority of Singaporeans are calm reasonable people.
Just need some direction pls,” he reiterated. /TISG